REX back intact

Just three weeks after The Record Exchange in Raleigh's Mission Valley closed, the space is open again as a new record store--under the same name.

Plan 9 Music, a Virginia-based chain that operates six stores throughout Virginia, bought the store in July and is managing and stocking it, though they have deferred replacing The Record Exchange logo with their own insignia for perhaps the next year, according to store co-manager Jeff Beck.

Beck, along with co-manager Randy Bennett, plan to fill the store with more independent releases--including heavily expanded hip-hop, metal and alternative country sections--and change the former Record Exchange model of a high used vs. new stock ratio. They hope to have the store fully stocked by the time N.C. State starts classes on Aug. 23.

"It will have the same clientele as Schoolkids has, at least in part," says Beck, adding that the store will also increase both general and new release advertising to make it known they are under new ownership. "Hopefully, people will look at it as the same store with a new attitude."

Schoolkids manager Ric Culross, though, says he's not as worried about the competition as he is excited by what two competitive independent stores can bring to the local music scene: "I want people to realize that the only way to keep this art form alive is to keep music stores in business. I'm not telling people to shop at Schoolkids, but to shop at music stores in general."

The closing of local Record Exchanges does leave the area with one less record store, though: The Hillsborough Street space that housed the first Raleigh Record Exchange closed June 26 and will likely not be re-opening as a record store.